Political
Ponerology: A Science on The Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes

by Andrew M. Lobaczewski

with
commentary and additional quoted material
by Laura Knight-Jadczyk

This article
is a two-parter. I should notify the reader that the really good stuff
is in the second part, so don't skip it!

Andrew
M. Lobaczewski, Nov. 2005

Pathocracy
is a disease of great social movements followed by entire societies,
nations, and empires. In the course of human history, it has affected
social, political, and religious movements as well as the accompanying
ideologies… and turned them into caricatures of themselves…. This occurred
as a result of the … participation of pathological agents in a pathodynamically
similar process. That explains why all the pathocracies of the world
are, and have been, so similar in their essential properties.

…Identifying
these phenomena through history and properly qualifying them according
to their true nature and contents - not according to the ideology in
question, which succumbed to the process of caricaturization - is a
job for historians. […]

The
actions of [pathocracy] affect an entire society, starting with the leaders
and infiltrating every town, business, and institution. The pathological
social structure gradually covers the entire country creating a “new class”
within that nation. This privileged class [of pathocrats] feels permanently
threatened by the “others”, i.e. by the majority of normal people. Neither
do the pathocrats entertain any illusions about their personal fate should
there be a return to the system of normal man. [Andrew M. LobaczewskiPolitical Ponerology: A science on the nature
of evil adjusted for political purposes]

The
word “psychopath” generally evokes images of the barely restrained -
yet surprisingly urbane - Dr. Hannibal Lecter of “Silence of the Lambs”
fame. I will admit that this was the image that came to my mind whenever
I heard the word. But I was wrong, and I was to learn this lesson quite
painfully by direct experience. The exact details are chronicled
elsewhere; what is important is that this experience was probably
one of the most painful and instructive episodes of my life and
it enabled me to overcome a block in my awareness of the world around
me and those who inhabit it.

Regarding
blocks to awareness, I need to state for the record that I have spent
30 years studying psychology, history, culture, religion, myth and the
so-called paranormal. I also have worked for many years with hypnotherapy
- which gave me a very good mechanical knowledge of how the mind/brain
of the human being operates at very deep levels. But even so, I was
still operating with certain beliefs firmly in place that were shattered
by my research into psychopathy. I realized that there was a certain
set of ideas that I held about human beings that were sacrosanct. I
even wrote about this once in the following way:

…my work has shown me that the vast majority of people want to do good,
to experience good things, think good thoughts, and make decisions with
good results. And they try with all their might to do so! With the majority
of people having this internal desire, why the Hell isn't it happening?

I
was naïve, I admit. There were many things I did not know that I have
learned since I penned those words. But even at that time I was aware
of how our own minds can be used to deceive us.

Now,
what beliefs did I hold that made me a victim of a psychopath? The first
and most obvious one is that I truly believed that deep inside, all
people are basically “good” and that they “want to do good, to
experience good things, think good thoughts, and make decisions with
good results. And they try with all their might to do so…”

As
it happens, this is not true as I - and everyone involved in our working
group - learned to our sorrow, as they say. But we also learned to our
edification. In order to come to some understanding of exactly what
kind of human being could do the things that were done to me (and others
close to me), and why they might be motivated - even driven - to behave
this way, we began to research the psychology literature for clues because
we needed to understand for our own peace of mind.

If
there is a psychological theory that can explain vicious and harmful
behavior, it helps very much for the victim of such acts to have this
information so that they do not have to spend all their time feeling
hurt or angry. And certainly, if there is a psychological theory that
helps a person to find what kind of words or deeds can bridge the chasm
between people, to heal misunderstandings, that is also a worthy goal.
It was from such a perspective that we began our extensive work on the
subjects of narcissism which then led to the study of psychopathy.

Of
course, we didn’t start out with such a “diagnosis” or label for what
we were witnessing. We started out with observations and searched the
literature for clues, for profiles, for anything that would help us
to understand the inner world of a human being - actually a group of
human beings - who seemed to be utterly depraved and unlike anything
we had ever encountered before.

Imagine
- if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of
guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern
for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members.
Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life,
no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you
had taken.

And pretend
that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a
burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools.

Now add
to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that
your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since
everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings,
hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless.

You are
not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you
are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice
water in your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their
personal experience, that they seldom even guess at your condition.

In other
words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your unhampered
liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is
conveniently invisible to the world.

You can
do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the majority
of people, who are kept in line by their consciences will most likely
remain undiscovered.

How
will you live your life?

What
will you do with your huge and secret advantage, and with the corresponding
handicap of other people (conscience)?

The answer
will depend largely on just what your desires happen to be, because
people are not all the same. Even the profoundly unscrupulous are
not all the same. Some people - whether they have a conscience or
not - favor the ease of inertia, while others are filled with dreams
and wild ambitions. Some human beings are brilliant and talented,
some are dull-witted, and most, conscience or not, are somewhere in
between. There are violent people and nonviolent ones, individuals
who are motivated by blood lust and those who have no such appetites.
[...]

Provided
you are not forcibly stopped, you can do anything at all.

If you
are born at the right time, with some access to family fortune, and
you have a special talent for whipping up other people's hatred and
sense of deprivation, you can arrange to kill large numbers of unsuspecting
people. With enough money, you can accomplish this from far away,
and you can sit back safely and watch in satisfaction. [...]

Crazy
and frightening - and real, in about 4 percent of the population....

The prevalence
rate for anorexic eating disorders is estimated a 3.43 percent, deemed
to be nearly epidemic, and yet this figure is a fraction lower than
the rate for antisocial personality. The high-profile disorders classed
as schizophrenia occur in only about 1 percent of [the population]
- a mere quarter of the rate of antisocial personality - and the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention say that the rate of colon cancer
in the United States, considered "alarmingly high," is about
40 per 100,000 - one hundred times lower than the rate of antisocial
personality.

The high
incidence of sociopathy in human society has a profound effect on
the rest of us who must live on this planet, too, even those of us
who have not been clinically traumatized. The individuals who constitute
this 4 percent drain our relationships, our bank accounts, our accomplishments,
our self-esteem, our very peace on earth.

Yet surprisingly,
many people know nothing about this disorder, or if they do, they
think only in terms of violent psychopathy - murderers, serial killers,
mass murderers - people who have conspicuously broken the law many
times over, and who, if caught, will be imprisoned, maybe even put
to death by our legal system.

We are
not commonly aware of, nor do we usually identify, the larger number
of nonviolent sociopaths among us, people who often are not blatant
lawbreakers, and against whom our formal legal system provides little
defense.

Most
of us would not imagine any correspondence between conceiving an ethnic
genocide and, say, guiltlessly lying to one's boss about a coworker.
But the psychological correspondence is not only there; it is chilling.
Simple and profound, the link is the absence of the inner mechanism
that beats up on us, emotionally speaking, when we make a choice we
view as immoral, unethical, neglectful, or selfish.

Most
of us feel mildly guilty if we eat the last piece of cake in the kitchen,
let alone what we would feel if we intentionally and methodically
set about to hurt another person.

Those
who have no conscience at all are a group unto themselves, whether
they be homicidal tyrants or merely ruthless social snipers.

The presence
or absence of conscience is a deep human division, arguably more significant
than intelligence, race, or even gender.

What
differentiates a sociopath who lives off the labors of others from
one who occasionally robs convenience stores, or from one who is a
contemporary robber baron - or what makes the difference betwen an
ordinary bully and a sociopathic murderer - is nothing more than social
status, drive, intellect, blood lust, or simple opportunity.

What
distinguishes all of these people from the rest of us is an utterly
empty hole in the psyche, where there should be the most evolved of
all humanizing functions. [Martha StoutThe
Sociopath Next Door] (highly recommended)

We
did not have the advantage of Dr. Stout's book at the beginning of our
research project. We did, of course, have Hare and Cleckley and Guggenbuhl-Craig
and others. There are still more that have appeared in the past couple
of years in response to the questions being formulated by many psychologists
and psychiatrists about the state of our world and the possibility that
there is some essential difference between such individuals as George
W. Bush and many so-called Neocons, and the rest of us.

Dr.
Stout's book has one of the longest explanations as to why none of her
examples resemble any actual persons that I have ever read. And then,
in a very early chapter, she describes a "composite" case
where the subject spent his childhood blowing up frogs with fire-crackers.
It is widely known that George W. Bush did this, so one naturally wonders...

In
any event, even without Dr. Stout's work, at the time we were studying
the matter, we realized that what we were learning was very important
to everyone because as the data was assembled, we saw that the clues,
the profiles, revealed that the issues we were facing were faced by
everyone at one time or another, to one extent or another. We also began
to realize that the profiles that emerged also describe rather accurately
many individuals who seek positions of power in fields of authority,
most particularly politics and commerce. That’s really not so surprising
an idea, but it honestly hadn’t occurred to us until we saw the patterns
and recognized them in the behaviors of numerous historical figures,
and lately including George W. Bush and members of his administration.

Current
day statistics tell us that there are more psychologically sick people
than healthy ones. If you take a sampling of individuals in any given
field, you are likely to find that a significant number of them display
pathological symptoms to one extent or another. Politics is no exception,
and by its very nature, would tend to attract more of the pathological
“dominator types” than other fields. That is only logical, and we began
to realize that it was not only logical, it was horrifyingly accurate;
horrifying because pathology among people in power can have disastrous
effects on all of the people under the control of such pathological
individuals. And so, we decided to write about this subject and publish
it on the Internet.

As
the material went up, letters from our readers began to come in thanking
us for putting a name to what was happening to them in their personal
lives as well as helping them to understand what was happening in a
world that seems to have gone completely mad. We began to think that
it was an epidemic and in a certain sense, we were right; just not in
the way we thought. If an individual with a highly contagious illness
works in a job that puts them in contact with the public, an epidemic
is the result. In the same way, if an individual in a position of political
power is a psychopath, he or she can create an epidemic of psychopathology
in people who are not, essentially, psychopathic. Our ideas along this
line were soon to receive confirmation from an unexpected source. I
received an email from a Polish psychologist who wrote as follows:

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen.

I have got your Special Research Project on psychopathy by my computer.
You are doing a most important and valuable work for the future of nations.[…]

I am a very aged clinical psychologist. Forty years ago I took part
in a secret investigation of the real nature and psychopathology of
the macro-social phenomenon called “Communism”. The other researchers
were the scientists of the previous generation who are now passed away.

The profound study of the nature psychopathy, which played the essential
and inspirational part in this macro-social psychopathologic phenomenon,
and distinguishing it from other mental anomalies, appeared to be the
necessary preparation for understanding the entire nature of the phenomenon.

The large part of the work, you are doing now, was done in those times.
…

I am able to provide you with a most valuable scientific document, useful
for your purposes. It is my book “POLITICAL PONEROLOGY – A science on
the nature of evil adjusted for political purposes”. You may also find
copy of this book in the Library of Congress and in some university
and public libraries in the USA.

Be so kind and contact me so that I may mail a copy to you.

Very truly yours!

Andrew M. £obaczewski

I
promptly wrote a reply. A couple of weeks later the manuscript arrived
in the mail.

As
I read, I realized that what I was holding in my hand was essentially
a chronicle of a descent into hell, transformation, and triumphant return
to the world with knowledge of that hell that was priceless for the
rest of us, particularly in this day and time when it seems evident
that a similar hell is enveloping the planet. The risks that were taken
by the group of scientists that did the research on which this book
is based are beyond the comprehension of most of us. Many of them were
young, just starting in their careers when the Nazis began to stride
in their hundred league jackboots across Europe. These researchers lived
through that, and then when the Nazis were driven out and replaced by
the Communists under the heel of Stalin, they faced years of oppression
the likes of which those of us today who are choosing to take a stand
against the Bush Reich cannot even imagine. And so, since they were
there, and they lived through it and brought back information to the
rest of us, it may well save our lives to have a map to guide us in
the falling darkness. It is in this context that I would like to bring
up how Dr. Lobczewski discusses the value of the close and clinical
study of evil in his book before we actually turn to the subject of
Ponerology:

This new science is incalculably rich in casuist detail... It contains
knowledge and a description of the phenomenon in the categories of the
natural world-view, correspondingly modified in accordance with the
need to understand [many] matters...

The development of this familiarity with the phenomenon is accompanied
by development of communicative language, by means of which society
can stay informed and issue warnings of danger. A third language thus
appears alongside the ideological doubletalk ... in part, it borrows
names used by the official ideology in their transformed modified meanings.
In part, this language operates with words borrowed from still more
lively circulating jokes. In spite of its strangeness, this language
becomes a useful means of communication and plays a part in regenerating
societal links. ... However, in spite of efforts on the part of literati
and journalists, this language remains only communicative inside; it
becomes hermetic outside the scope of the phenomenon, incomprehensible
to people lacking the appropriate personal experience. [...]

This new science, expressed in language derived from a deviant reality,
is something foreign to people who wish to understand this macro-social
phenomenon but think in the categories of the countries of normal man.
Attempts to understand this language produce a certain feeling of helplessness
which gives rise to the tendency of creating ones own doctrines, built
from concepts of one's own world and a certain amount of appropriately
co-opted pathocratic propaganda material. Such a doctrine - an example
would be the American anti-Communist doctrine - makes it even more difficult
to understand that other reality. May the objective description adduced
herein enable them to overcome the impasse thus engendered.[...]

The specific role of certain individuals during such times is worth
pointing out; they participated in the discovery of the nature of this
new reality and helped others find the right path. They had a normal
nature but an unfortunate childhood, being subjected very early to the
domination of individuals with various psychological deviations, including
pathological egotism and methods of terrorizing others. The new rulership
system struck such people as a large-scale societal multiplication of
what they knew from individual experience. From the very outset, they
therefore saw this reality much more prosaically, immediately treating
the ideology in accordance with the paralogistic stories well known
to them, whose purpose was to cloak bitter reality of their youth experiences.
They soon reached the truth, since the genesis and nature of evil are
analogous irrespective of the social scale in which it appears.

Such people are rarely understood in happy societies, but there they
became useful; their explanations and advice proved accurate and were
transmitted to others joining the network of this apperceptive heritage.
However, their own suffering was doubled, since this was too much of
a similar kind of abuse for one life to handle. ...

Finally, society sees the appearance of individuals who have collected
exceptional intuitive perception and practical knowledge in the area
of how pathocrats think and such a system of rule operates.

Some of them become so proficient in the deviant psychopath language
and its idiomatics that they are able to use it, much like a foreign
language they have learned well. Since they are to decipher the rulership's
intentions, such people thereupon offer advice to people who are having
trouble with the authorities. These usually disinterested advocates
of the society of normal people play a irreplaceable role in the life
of society. The pathocrats, however, can never learn to think in normal
human categories. At the same time, the ability to predict the ways
of reaction of such an authority also leads to the conclusion that the
system is rigidly causative and lacking in the natural freedom of choice.
[...]

I was once referred a patient who had been an inmate in a Nazi concentration
camp. She came back from that hell in such exceptionally good condition
that she was still able to marry and bear three children. However, her
child-rearing methods were so extremely iron-fisted as to be much too
reminiscent of the concentration camp life so stubbornly per-severing
in former prisoners. The children's reaction was neurotic protest and
aggressiveness against other children.

During the mother's psychotherapy, we recalled the figures of male and
female SS officers to her mind, pointing out their psychopathic characteristics
(such people were primary recruits). In order to help her eliminate
their pathological material from her person, I furnished her with approximate
statistical data regarding the appearance of such individuals within
the population as whole. This helped her reach a more objective view
of that reality and reestablish trust in the society of normal people.
...

Parallel to the development of practical knowledge and a language of
insider communication, other psychological phenomena take form; they
are truly significant in the transformation of social life under pathocratic
rule, and discerning them is essential if one wishes to understand individuals
and nations fated to live under such conditions and to evaluate the
situation in the political sphere. They include people's psychological
immunization and their adaptation to life under such deviant conditions.

The methods of psychological terror (that specific pathocratic art),
the techniques of pathological arrogance, and the striding roughshod
into other people's souls initially have such traumatic effects that
people are deprived of their capacity for purposeful reaction; I have
already adduced the psychophysiological aspects of such states. Ten
or twenty years later, analogous behavior can be recognized as well-known
buffoonery and does not deprive the victim of his ability to think and
react purposefully. His answers are usually well-thought-out strategies,
issued from the position of a normal person's superiority and often
laced with ridicule. Man can look suffering and even death in the eye
with the required calm. A dangerous weapon falls out of ruler's hands.

We have to understand that this process of immunization is not merely
a result of the above described increase in practical knowledge of the
macro-social phenomenon. It is the effect of a many-layered, gradual
process of growth in knowledge, familiarization with the phenomenon,
creation of the appropriate reactive habits, and self-control, with
an overall conception and moral principles being worked out in the meantime.
After several years, the same stimuli which formerly caused chilly spiritual
impotence or mental paralysis now provoke the desire to gargle with
something strong so as to get rid of this filth.

It was a time, when many people dreamed of finding some pill which would
make it easier to endure dealing with the authorities or attending the
forced indoctrination sessions generally chaired by a psychopathic character.
Some antidepressants did in fact prove to have the desired effect. Twenty
years later, this had been forgotten entirely.

When I was arrested for the first time in 1951, force, arrogance,
and psychopathic methods of forcible confession deprived me almost entirely
of my self-defense capabilities. My brain stopped functioning after
only a few days' arrest without water, to such a point that I couldn't
even properly remember the incident which resulted in my sudden arrest.
I was not even aware that it had been purposely provoked and that conditions
permitting self-defense did in fact exist. They did almost any-thing
they wanted to me.

When I was arrested for the last time in 1968, I was interrogated by
five fierce-looking security functionaries. At one particular moment,
after thinking through their predicted reactions, I let my gaze take
in each face sequentially with great attentiveness. The most important
one asked me, "What's on your mind, buster, staring at us like
that?" I answered without any fear of consequences: "I'm just
wondering why so many of you gentleman's careers end up in a psychiatric
hospital." They were taken aback for a while, whereupon the same
man exclaimed, "Because it's such damned horrible work!" "I
am of the opinion that it's the other way round", I calmly responded.
Then I was taken back to my cell.

Three days later, I had the opportunity to talk to him again, but this
time he was much more respectful. Then he ordered me to be taken away
- outside, as it turned out. I rode the streetcar home past a large
park, still unable to believe my eyes. Once in my room, I lay down on
the bed; the world was not quite real yet, but exhausted people fall
asleep quickly. When I awoke, I spoke out loud: Dear God, aren't you
supposed to be in charge here in this world!"

At that time, I knew not only that up to 1/4 of all secret police officials
wind up in psychiatric hospitals. I also knew that their "occupational
disease" is the congestive dementia formerly encountered only among
old prostitutes. Man cannot violate the natural human feelings inside
him with impunity, no matter what kind of profession he performs. From
that view-point, Comrade Captain was partially right. At the same time,
however, my reactions had become resistant, a far cry from what they
had been seventeen years earlier.

All these transformations of human consciousness and unconsciousness
result in individual and collective adaptations to living under such
systems. Under altered conditions of both material and moral limitations,
an existential resourcefulness emerges which is prepared to overcome
many difficulties. A new network of the society of normal people is
also created for self-help and mutual assistance.

This society acts in concert and is aware of the true state of affairs;
it begins to develop ways of influencing various elements of authority
and achieving goals which are socially useful. ...The opinion that society
is totally deprived of any influence upon government in such a country
is thus inaccurate. In reality, society does co-govern to a certain
extent, sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing in its attempt to
create more tolerable living conditions. This, however, occurs in a
manner totally different from what happens in democratic countries.

These processes: cognitive, psychological immunization, and adaptation
permit the creation of new interpersonal and societal links, which operate
within the scope of the large majority we have already called the "society
of normal people." These links extend discretely into the world
of the regime's middle class, among people who can be trusted to a certain
extent. ...

Exchange of information, warnings, and assistance encompasses the entire
society. Whoever is able to do so offers aid to anyone who finds himself
in trouble, often in such a way that the person helped does not know
who rendered the assistance. However, if he caused his misfortune by
his own lack of circumspect caution with regard to the authorities,
he meets with reproach, but not the withholding of assistance.

It is possible to create such links because this new division of society
gives only limited consideration to factors such as the level of talent
or education or traditions attached to the former social layers. Neither
do reduced prosperity differences dissolve these links. One side of
this division contains those of the highest mental culture, simple ordinary
people, intellectuals, headwork specialists, factory workers, and peasants
joined by the common protest of their human nature against the domination
of a Para human experience and governmental methods. These links engender
interpersonal understanding and fellow-feeling among people and social
groups formerly divided by economic differences and social traditions.
The thought processes serving these links are of more psychological
character, able to comprehend someone else's motivations. At the same
time, the ordinary folk retain respect for people who have been educated
and represent intellectual values. Certain social and moral values also
appear, and may prove to be permanent.

The genesis, however, of this great interpersonal solidarity only becomes
comprehensible once we already know the nature of the pathological macro-social
phenomenon which brought about the liberation of such attitudes, complete
with recognition of one's own humanity and that of others. Another reflection
suggests itself, namely how very different these great links are from
America's "competitive society...

This
work is so important that I believe that every normal human being ought
to read it for their own safety and mental hygiene. I am going to present
here some important excerpts from the book soon to be made available
in its entirety.

From
the Author’s Foreword:

In presenting my honored readers with this volume, which I generally
worked on during the early hours before leaving to make a difficult
living, I would first like to apologize for the defects which are the
result of anomalous circumstances such as the absence of a proper laboratory.
I readily admit that these lacunae should be filled, time-consuming
as that may be, because the facts on which this book are based are urgently
needed. Through no fault of the author’s, these data have come too late.

The reader is entitled to an explanation of the long history and circumstances
under which this work was compiled. This is the third time I have treated
the same subject. I threw the first manuscript into a central-heating
furnace, having been warned just in time about an official search, which
took place minutes later. I sent the second draft to a Church dignitary
at the Vatican by means of an American tourist and was absolutely unable
to obtain any kind of information about the fate of the parcel once
it left with him.

This … history … made work on the third version even more laborious.
Prior paragraphs and former phrases from one or both first drafts haunt
the writer’s mind and make proper planning of the content more difficult.

The two first drafts were written in very convoluted language for the
benefit of specialists with the necessary background, particularly in
the field of psychopathology. The irretrievable disappearance of the
second version also included the overwhelming majority of statistical
data and facts which would have been so valuable and conclusive for
specialists. Several analyses of individual cases were also lost.

The present version contains only such statistical data which had been
memorized due to frequent use, or which could be reconstructed with
satisfactory precision. […] I also nurse the hope that this work may
reach a wider audience and make available some useful scientific data
which may serve as a basis for comprehension of the contemporary world
and its history. It may also make it easier for readers to understand
themselves, their neighbors, and other nations.

Who produced the knowledge and performed the work summarized within
the pages of this book? It is a joint endeavor containing not only my
efforts, but also representing the work of many researchers…

The author worked in Poland far away from active political and cultural
centers for many years. That is where I undertook a series of detailed
tests and observations which were to be combined within the resulting
generalisations in order to produce an overall introduction for an understanding
of the macro-social phenomenon surrounding us. The name of the person
expected to effect this synthesis was a secret, as was understandable
and necessary given the time and the situation. I would very occasionally
receive anonymous summaries of the results of tests from Poland and
Hungary. A few data were published, as it raised no suspicions that
a specialized work was being compiled, and these data could still be
located today.

The expected synthesis of this work did not occur. All my contacts became
inoperative as a result of the secret arrests of researchers in the
early sixties. The remaining scientific data in my possession were very
incomplete, albeit priceless in value. It took many years of lonely
work to weld these fragments into a coherent whole, filling the lacunae
with my own experience and research.

My research on essential psychopathy and its exceptional role in the
macro-social phenomenon was conducted concurrently with or shortly after
that of others. Their conclusions reached me later and confirmed my
own. The most characteristic item in my work is the general concept
for a new scientific discipline named “ponerology.”[…]

As the author of the final work, I hereby express my deep respect for
all those who initiated the research and continued to conduct it at
the risk of their careers, health and lives. I pay homage to those who
paid the price through suffering or death. May this work constitute
some compensation for their sacrifices…

New York, N.Y. August 1984

Dr.
Lobaczewski escaped to the United States where he reassembled and wrote
down his research before Solidarity brought the downfall of communism
in Poland. Lobaczewski added a few words to his introduction:

Fifteen years passed, fraught with political occurrences. The world
changed essentially due to the natural laws of the phenomenon described
in this book, and due to the efforts of people of good will. Nonetheless,
the world as yet is not restored to good health; and the remainders
of the great disease are still very active and threatening a reoccurrence
of the illness. Such is the result of a great effort completed without
the support of the objective knowledge about the very nature of the
phenomenon. […]

The author was recognised as the bearer of this “dangerous” science
only in Austria, by a “friendly” physician who turned out to be a “red”
agent. The communist groups in New York were then set up to organize
a “counter action.” It was terrible to learn how the system of conscious
and unconscious pawns worked. Worst were the people who credulously
trusted their conscious “friends” and performed the insinuated activities
with patriotic zeal. The author was refused assistance and had to save
his life by working as a welder. My health collapsed, and two years
were lost. It appeared that I was not the first who came to America
bringing similar knowledge and, once there, treated in a similar way.

In spite of all these circumstances, the book was written on time, but
no one would publish it. The work was described as “very informative”
but for psychological editors, it contained too much politics and for
political editors, it contained too much psychology, or simply “the
editorial deadline has just closed.” Gradually, it became clear that
the book did not pass the insider’s inspection.[…]

The scientific value which may serve the future remains, and further
investigations may yield a new understanding of human problems with
progress toward universal peace. This was the reason I labored to retype,
on my computer, the whole already fading manuscript. It is here presented
as it was written in 1983-84 in New York, USA. So let it be a document
of good science and dangerous labor. The author’s desire is to hand
this work into the hands of scholars in the hope they will take his
burden over and progress with the theoretical research in ponerology
- and put it in praxis for the good of people and nations.

Poland - June, 1998

Dr.
Lobaczewski left the United States and returned to Poland before September
11, 2001. But his remarks were prophetic:

Nonetheless, the world as yet is not restored to good health; and the
remainders of the great disease are still very active and threatening
a reoccurrence of the illness.

What
“dangerous science was Dr. Lobaczewski carrying with him when he escaped
from communist Poland?

He
calls it “Ponerology” which the dictionary defines: n. division of theology
dealing with evil; theological doctrine of wickedness or evil; from
the Greek: poneros -> evil'.

But
Dr. Lobaczewski was not proposing a “theological” study, but rather
a scientific study of what we can plainly call Evil. The problem is,
our materialist scientific culture does not readily admit that evil
actually exists, per se. Yes, “evil” plays a part in religious discourse,
but even there it is given short shrift as an “error” or a “rebellion”
that will be corrected at some point in the future, which is discussed
in another theological division: eschatology, which is concerned with
the final events in history of the world, the ultimate fate of humanity.

There
are quite a number of modern psychologists who are actually beginning
to move in the direction of what Dr. Lobaczewski said had already been
done behind the Iron Curtain many years ago. I have a stack of their
books on my desk. Some of them seem to be falling back into the religious
perspective simply because they have no other scientific ground on which
to stand. I think that is counterproductive. As George K. Simon, Jr.,
writes in his book “In
Sheep’s Clothing”: (HIGHLY recommended)

…[W]e’ve been pre-programmed to believe that people only exhibit problem
behaviors when they’re “troubled” inside or anxious about something.
We’ve also been taught that people aggress only when they’re attacked
in some way. So, even when our gut tells us that somebody is attacking
us and for no good reason, we don’t readily accept the notion. We usually
start to wonder what’s bothering the person so badly “underneath it
all” that’s making them act in such a disturbing way. We may even wonder
what we may have said or done that “threatened” them. We almost never
think that they might be fighting simply to get something, have their
way, or gain the upper hand. So, instead of seeing them as merely fighting,
we view them as primarily hurting in some way.

Not only do we often have trouble recognizing the ways people aggress
us, but we also have difficulty discerning the distinctly aggressive
character of some personalities. The legacy of Sigmund Freud’s work
has a lot to do with this. Freud’s theories (and the theories of others
who built upon his work) heavily influenced the psychology of personality
for a long time. Elements of the classical theories of personality found
their way into many disciplines other than psychology as well as into
many of our social institutions and enterprises. The basic tenets of
these theories and their hallmark construct, neurosis, have become fairly
well etched in the public consciousness.

Psychodynamic theories of personality tend to view everyone, at least
to some degree, as neurotic. Neurotic individuals are overly inhibited
people who suffer unreasonable fear (anxiety), guilt and shame when
it comes to securing their basic wants and needs. The malignant impact
of overgeneralizing Freud’s observations about a small group of overly
inhibited individuals into a broad set of assumptions about the causes
of psychological ill-health in everyone cannot be overstated.[…]

Therapists whose training overly indoctrinated them in the theory of
neurosis, may “frame” problems presented them incorrectly. They may,
for example, assume that a person, who all their life has aggressively
pursued independence and demonstrated little affinity for others, must
necessarily be “compensating” for a “fear” of intimacy. In other words,
they will view a hardened fighter as a terrified runner, thus misperceiving
the core reality of the situation.[…]

We need a completely different theoretical framework if we are to truly
understand, deal with, and treat the kinds of people who fight too much
as opposed to those who cower or “run” too much.

The
problem is, of course, that when you read all the books about such people
as Dr. Simon is describing, you discover that “treatment” really means
treating the victims because such aggressors almost never seek help.

Getting
back to Dr. Lobaczewski: I wrote to ask for more details as to why this
important work was generally unknown. What was the meaning of his remark:
"It appeared that I was not the first who came to America bringing
similar knowledge and, once there, treated in a similar way." He
replied by mail:

[…] Years ago the publication of the book in the US was killed by Mr.
Zbigniew Brzezinski in a very cunning way. What was his motivation,
I may only guess. Was it his own private strategy, or did he act as
an insider of the “great system” as he surely is? How many billions
of dollars and how many human lives the lack of this science has cost
the world. […]

As
for who else was involved in this work: in those times, such work could
only be done in full secrecy. During the German occupation, we learned
to never ask for names though it was well known among us that this was
an international communication among some scientists. I can tell you
that one Hungarian scientist was killed because of his work on this
project, and in Poland, professor Stephan Blachowski died mysteriously
while working on these investigations. It is a certainty that professor
Kasimir Dabrowski was active in the study, being an expert on psychopathy.
He escaped to the US and in New York, became an object of harassment
as I had been. He went to Canada and worked at the university in Edmonton.

After
reading Lobaczewski's work, it is easy to understand why Brzezinski
suppressed it. It exposes the Neocons and Pathocrats so completely that
they could not allow it to be propagated! It also may be that they used
it as a handbook to better "pull the wool" over the eyes of
the masses.

Continuing with Lobaczewski's book:

Pathocracy

As a youth, I read a book about a naturalist wandering through the Amazon-basin
wilderness. At some moment a small animal fell from a tree onto the
nape of his neck, clawing his skin painfully and sucking his blood.
The biologist cautiously removed it - without anger, since that was
its form of feeding - and proceeded to study it carefully. This story
stubbornly stuck in my mind during those very difficult times when a
vampire fell onto our necks, sucking the blood of an unhappy nation.

The attitude of a naturalist - who attempts to track the nature of macro-social
phenomena in spite of all adversity - insured a certain intellectual
distance and better psychological hygiene, also slightly increasing
the feeling of safety and furnishing a premonition that this very method
may help find a certain creative solution. This required controlling
the natural, moralizing reflexes of revulsion and other painful emotions
this phenomenon provokes in any normal person when it deprives him of
his joy of life and personal safety, ruining his own future and that
of his nation. Scientific curiosity becomes a loyal ally during such
times.

May the reader please imagine a very large hall in some old Gothic university
building. Many of us gathered there early in our studies in order to
listen to the lectures of outstanding philosophers. We were herded back
there the year before graduation in order to listen to the indoctrination
lectures which recently have been introduced. Someone nobody knew appeared
behind the lectern and informed us that he would now be the professor.
His speech was fluent, but there was nothing scientific about it: he
failed to distinguish between scientific and everyday concepts and treated
borderline imaginings as though it were wisdom that could not be doubted.
For ninety minutes each week, he flooded us with naïve, presumptuous
paralogistics and a pathological view of human reality. We were treated
with contempt and poorly controlled hatred. Since fun poking could entail
dreadful consequences, we had to listen attentively and with the utmost
gravity.

The grapevine soon discovered this person’s origins. He had come from
a Cracow suburb and attended high school, although no one knew if he
graduated. Anyway, this was the first time he had crossed university
portals - as a professor, at that! […]

After such mind-torture, it took a long time for someone to break the
silence. We studied ourselves, since we felt something strange had taken
over our minds and something valuable was leaking away irretrievably.
The world of psychological reality and moral values seemed suspended
like in a chilly fog. Our human feeling and student solidarity lost
their meaning, as did patriotism and our old established criteria. So
we asked each other: “Are you going through this too?” Each of us experienced
this worry about his own personality and future in his own way. Some
of us answered the questions with silence. The depth of these experiences
turned out to be different for each individual.

We thus wondered how to protect ourselves from the results of this “indoctrination.”
Teresa D. made the first suggestion: Let’s spend a weekend in the mountains.
It worked. Pleasant company, a bit of joking, then exhaustion followed
by deep sleep in a shelter, and our human personalities returned, albeit
with a certain remnant. Time also proved to create a kind of psychological
immunity, although not with everyone. Analysing the psychopathic characteristics
of the “professor’s” personality proved another excellent way of protecting
one’s own psychological hygiene.

You can just imagine our worry, disappointment, and surprise when some
colleagues we knew well suddenly began to change their world-view; their
thought-patterns furthermore reminded us of the “professor’s” chatter.
Their feelings, which had just recently been friendly, became noticeably
cooler, although not yet hostile. Benevolent or critical student arguments
bounced right off of them. They gave the impression of possessing some
secret knowledge; we were only their former colleagues, still believing
what those professors of old had taught us. We had to be careful of
what we said to them.

Our former colleagues soon joined the Party. Who were they? What social
groups did they come from? What kind of students and people were they?
How and why did they change so much in less than a year? Why did neither
I nor a majority of my fellow students succumb to this phenomenon and
process? Many such questions fluttered through our heads then. Those
times, questions, and attitudes gave rise to the idea that this phenomenon
could be objectively understood, an idea whose greater meaning crystallized
with time. Many of us participated in the initial observations and reflections,
but most crumbled away in the face of material or academic problems.
Only a few remained; so the author of this book may be the last of the
Mohicans.

It was relatively easy to determine the environments and origin of the
people who succumbed to this process, which I then called “transpersonification”.
They came from all social groups, including aristocratic and fervently
religious families, and caused a break in our student solidarity in
the order of some 6 %. The remaining majority suffered varying degrees
of personality disintegration which gave rise to individual efforts
in searching for the values necessary to find ourselves again; the results
were varied and sometimes creative.

Even then, we had no doubts as to the pathological nature of this “transpersonification”
process, which ran similar but not identical in all cases. The duration
of the results of this phenomenon also varied. Some of these people
later became zealots. Others later took advantage of various circumstances
to withdraw and reestablish their lost links to the society of normal
people. They were replaced. The only constant value of the new social
system was the magic number of 6 %.

We tried to evaluate the talent level of those colleagues who had succumbed
to this personality-transformation process, and reached the conclusion
that on average, it was slightly lower than the average of the student
population. Their lesser resistance obviously resided in other bio-psychological
features which were most probably qualitatively heterogeneous.

I had to study subjects bordering on psychology and psychopathology
in order to answer the questions arising from our observations; scientific
neglect in these areas proved an obstacle difficult to overcome. At
the same time, someone guided by special knowledge apparently vacated
the libraries of anything we could have found on the topic.

Is
it any wonder why, nowadays, any group seeking to provide this very
knowledge to others would be labeled a "cult?"

Analysing these occurrences now in hindsight, we could say that the
“professor” was dangling bait over our heads, based on psychopaths’
specific psychological knowledge. He knew in advance that he would fish
out amenable individuals, but the limited numbers disappointed him.
The transpersonification process generally took hold whenever an individual’s
instinctive substratum was marked by pallor or some deficits. To a lesser
extent, it also worked among people who manifested other deficiencies,
also the state provoked within them was partially impermanent, being
largely the result of psychopathological induction.

This knowledge about the existence of susceptible individuals and how
to work on them will continue being a tool for world conquest as long
as it remains the secret of such “professors.” When it becomes skillfully
popularized science, it will help nations develop immunity. But none
of us knew this at the time.

Nevertheless, we must admit that in demonstrating the properties of
pathocracy in such a way as to force us into in-depth experience, the
professor helped us understand the nature of the phenomenon in a larger
scope than many a true scientific researcher participating in this work
in one way or another. […]

The natural psychological, societal, and moral world-view is a product
of man’s developmental process within a society, under the constant
influence of his innate traits. No person can develop without being
influenced by other people and their personalities, or by the values
imbued by his civilization and his moral and religious traditions. That
is why his world-view can be neither universal nor true.

It is thus significant that the main values of this human world-view
of nature indicate basic similarities in spite of great spans of time,
race, and civilization. It is thus suggested that the “human world view”
derives from the nature of our species and the natural experience of
human societies which have achieved a certain necessary level of civilization.
Refinements based on literary values or philosophical and moral reflections
do indicate some differences, but generally speaking, they tend to bring
together the natural conceptual language of various civilizations and
eras.

People with a “humanistic” education may have the impression that they
have achieved wisdom, but here we approach a problem; we must ask the
following question: Even if the natural world-view has been refined,
does it mirror reality with sufficient reliability? Or does it only
mirror our species’ perception? To what extent can we depend upon it
as a basis for decision making in the individual, societal, and political
spheres of life?

Experience teaches us, first of all, that this natural world-view has
permanent and characteristic tendencies toward deformation dictated
by our instinctive and emotional features. Secondly, our work exposes
us to many phenomena that cannot be understood and described by natural
language alone.

Considering the most important reality deforming tendency, we notice
that those emotional features which are a natural component of the human
personality are never completely appropriate to the reality being experienced.
This results both from our instinct and from our conditioning of upbringing.
This is why the best traditions of philosophical and religious thought
have counseled subduing the emotions in order to achieve a more accurate
view of reality.

Another problem is the fact that our natural world-view is generally
characterized by a tendency to endow our opinions with moral judgments,
often so negative as to represent outrage. This appeals to tendencies
which are deeply rooted in human nature and social customs.

We often meet with sensible people endowed with a well-developed natural
world-view as regards psychological, societal, and moral aspects, frequently
refined via literary influences, religious deliberations, and philosophical
reflections. Such persons have a pronounced tendency to overrate the
values of their world-view. They do not take into account the fact that
their system can be also erroneous since it is insufficiently objective.

Let us call such an attitude the egotism of the natural world-view.
To date, it has been the least pernicious type of egotism, being merely
an overestimation of that method of comprehension containing the eternal
values of human experience.

Today, however, the world is being jeopardized by a phenomenon that
cannot be understood and described by means of such a natural conceptual
language; this kind of egotism thus becomes a dangerous factor stifling
the possibility of some counteractive measures. Developing and popularizing
the objective psychological world-view could thus significantly expand
the scope of dealing with evil via sensible action and pinpointed countermeasures.

Ever since ancient times, philosophers and religious thinkers representing
various attitudes in different cultures have been searching for the
truth as regards moral values, attempting to find criteria for what
is right, what constitutes good advice. They described the virtues of
human character and suggested these be acquired. They created a heritage
… which contains centuries of experience and reflections. In spite of
the obvious differences among attitudes, the similarity or complementarity
of the conclusions reached by famous ancients are striking, even though
they worked in widely divergent times and places. After all, whatever
is valuable is conditioned and caused by the laws of nature acting upon
the personalities of both individual human beings and collective societies.

It is equally thought-provoking, however, to see how relatively little
has been said about the opposite side of the coin; the nature, causes,
and genesis of evil. These matters are usually cloaked behind the above
generalized conclusions with a certain amount of secrecy. Such a state
of affairs can be partially ascribed to the social conditions and historical
circumstances under which these thinkers worked. Their modus operandi
may have been dictated at least in part by personal fate, inherited
traditions, or even prudishness. After all, justice and virtue are the
opposites of force and perversity, the same applies to truthfulness
vs. lies, similarly like health is the opposite of an illness.

The character and genesis of evil thus remained hidden in discreet shadows,
leaving it to playwrights to deal with the subject in their highly expressive
language, but that did not reach the primeval source of the phenomena.
A certain cognitive space thus remains uninvestigated, a thicket of
moral questions which resists understanding and philosophical generalizations.
[…]

From time immemorial, man has dreamed of a life in which his efforts
to accumulate benefits can be punctuated by rest during which time he
enjoys those benefits. He learned how to domesticate animals in order
to accumulate more benefits, and when that no longer met his needs,
he learned to enslave other human beings simply because he was more
powerful and could do it.

Dreams of a happy life of “more accumulated benefits” to be enjoyed,
and more leisure time in which to enjoy them, thus gave rise to force
over others, a force which depraves the mind of its user. That is why
man’s dreams of happiness have not come true throughout history: the
hedonistic view of “happiness” contains the seeds of misery. Hedonism,
the pursuit of the accumulation of benefits for the sole purpose of
self-enjoyment, feeds the eternal cycle where good times lead to bad
times.

During good times, people lose sight of the need for thinking, introspection,
knowledge of others, and an understanding of life. When things are “good,”
people ask themselves whether it is worth it to ponder human nature
and flaws in the personality (one’s own, or that of another). In good
times, entire generations can grow up with no understanding of the creative
meaning of suffering since they have never experienced it themselves.
When all the joys of life are there for the taking, mental effort to
understand science and the laws of nature - to acquire knowledge that
may not be directly related to accumulating stuff - seems like pointless
labor. Being “healthy minded,” and positive - a good sport with never
a discouraging word - is seen as a good thing, and anyone who predicts
dire consequences as the result of such insouciance is labeled a wet-blanket
or a killjoy.

Perception of the truth about reality, especially a real understanding
of human nature in all it’s ranges and permutations, ceases to be a
virtue to be acquired. Thoughtful doubters are “meddlers” who can’t
leave well enough alone. “Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke.” This attitude
leads to an impoverishment of psychological knowledge including the
capacity to differentiate the properties of human nature and personality,
and the ability to mold healthy minds creatively.

The cult of power thus supplants the mental and moral values so essential
for maintaining peace by peaceful means. A nation’s enrichment or involution
as regards its psychological world-view could be considered an indicator
of whether its future be good or bad.

During good times, the search for the meaning of life, the truth of
our reality, becomes uncomfortable because it reveals inconvenient factors.
Unconscious elimination of data which are, or appear to be, inexpedient,
begins to be habitual, a custom accepted by entire societies. The result
is that any thought processes based on such truncated information cannot
bring correct conclusions. This then leads to substitution of convenient
lies to the self to replace uncomfortable truths thereby approaching
the boundaries of phenomena which should be viewed as psychopathological.

The
facts are that “good times” for one group of people have been historically
rooted in some injustice to other groups of people. In such a society,
where all the hidden truths lurk below the surface like an iceberg,
disaster is just around the corner.

It
is clear that America has experienced a long period of “good times”
for most of its existence, (no matter how many people they had to oppress
or kill to do so), but particularly so during the 50 years preceding
September 11, 2001. During that 50 years, several generations of children
were born, and the ones that were born at the beginning of that time,
who have never known “bad times,” are now at an age where they want
to “enjoy” the benefits they have accumulated. Unfortunately, it doesn’t
look like that is going to happen; 9/11 has changed everything so profoundly
that it looks like there will be no enjoyment by anyone for a very,
very long time.

How
could this happen?

The
answer is that a few generation’s worth of “good times” results in the
above described societal deficits regarding psychological skills and
moral criticism. Long periods of preoccupation with the self and “accumulating
benefits” for the self, diminish the ability to accurately read the
environment and other people. But the situation is more serious than
just a generalized weakness of a society that could be “toughened up”
with a little “hard times”.

Lobaczewski
writes:

The psychological features of each such crisis are unique to the culture
and the time, but one common denominator that exists at the beginning
of all such “bad times” is an exacerbation of society’s hysterical condition.
The emotionalism dominating in individual, collective, and political
life, combined with the subconscious selection and substitution of data
in reasoning, lead to individual and national egotism. The mania for
taking offense at the drop of a hat provokes constant retaliation, taking
advantage of hyperirritability and hypocriticality on the part of others.
It is this feature, this hystericization of society, that enables pathological
plotters, snake charmers, and other primitive deviants to act as essential
factors in the processes of the origination of evil on a macro-social
scale.

Who,
exactly, are the “pathological plotters,” and what can motivate such
individuals during times that are generally understood by others as
“good?” If times are “good,” why does anyone want to plot and generate
evil?

Well,
certainly, the current US administration has come up with an answer:
“They hate us because of our freedoms.” This is a prime example of “selection
and substitution of data in reasoning” which is willingly and gladly
accepted as an explanation by the public because of their deficits of
psychological skills and moral criticism.

Lobaczewski: Present-day philosophers developing meta-ethics are trying
to press forward in their understanding, and as they slip and slide
along the elastic space leading to an analysis of the language of ethics,
they contribute toward eliminating some imperfections and habits of
natural conceptual language. Penetrating this ever-mysterious nucleus,
however, is highly tempting to a scientist.[…]

If physicians behaved like ethicists and failed to study diseases because
they were only interested in studying questions of health, there would
be no such thing as modern medicine. […] Physicians were correct in
their emphasis on studying disease above all in order to discover the
causes and biological properties of illnesses, and then to understand
the pathodynamics of their courses. A comprehension of the nature of
a disease, and the course it runs, after all, enables the proper curative
means to be elaborated and employed.[…]

The question thus arises: could some analogous modus operandi not be
used to study the causes and genesis of other kinds of evil scourging
human individuals, families, societies? Experience has taught the author
that evil is similar to disease in nature, although possibly more complex
and elusive to our understanding. […]

Parallel to the traditional approach, problems commonly perceived to
be moral may also be treated on the basis of data provided by biology,
medicine, and psychology, as the factors of this kind are simultaneously
present in the question as a whole. Experience teaches us that a comprehension
of the essence and genesis of evil generally make use of data from these
areas. […]

Philosophical thought may have engendered all the scientific disciplines,
but the latter did not mature until they became independent, based on
detailed data and a relationship to other disciplines supplying such
data.

Encouraged by the often “coincidental” discovery of these naturalistic
aspects of evil, the author initiated the methodology of medicine; a
clinical psychologist and medical co-worker by profession, he had such
tendencies anyway. As is the case with physicians and disease, he took
the risks of close contact with evil and suffered the consequences.
His purpose was to ascertain the possibilities of understanding the
nature of evil, its etiological factors and to track its pathodynamics.[…]

A new discipline thus arose: Ponerology. The process of the genesis
of evil was called, correspondingly, “ponerogenesis.” […]

Considerable moral, intellectual, and practical advantages can be gleaned
from an understanding of the genesis of Evil thanks to the objectivity
required to study it dispassionately. The human heritage of ethics is
not destroyed by taking such an approach: it is actually strengthened
because the scientific method can be utilized to confirm the basic values
of moral teachings.

Understanding the nature of macro-social pathology helps us to find
a healthy attitude and thus protects our minds from being controlled
or poisoned by the diseased contents and influence of their propaganda.

We can only conquer this huge, contagious social cancer if we comprehend
its essence and its etiological causes.

Such an understanding of the nature of the phenomena leads to the logical
conclusion that the measures for healing and reordering the world today
should be completely different from the ones heretofore used for solving
international conflicts. It is also true that, merely having the knowledge
and awareness of the phenomena of the genesis of macro-social Evil can
begin healing individual humans and help their minds regain harmony.
[…]

Lobaczewski
discusses the fact that “bad times,” seem to have a historical “purpose.”
It seems that suffering during times of crisis lead to mental activity
aimed at solving or ending the suffering. The bitterness of loss invariably
leads to a regeneration of values and empathy.

Lobaczewski:
When bad times arrive and people are overwhelmed by an excess of evil,
they must gather all their physical and mental strength to fight for
existence and protect human reason. The search for some way out of difficulties
and dangers rekindles long-buried powers or discretion. Such people
have the initial tendency to rely on force in order to counteract the
threat; they may, for instance, become “trigger happy” or dependent
upon armies. Slowly and laboriously, however, they discover the advantages
conferred by mental effort; improved understanding of psychological
situations in particular, better differentiation of human characters
and personalities, and finally, comprehension of one’s adversaries.
During such times, virtues which former generations relegated to literary
motifs regain their real and useful substance and become prized for
their value. A wise person capable of furnishing sound advice is highly
respected.

It seems that there have been many such “bad times” in the course of
human history, and it was during such times that the great systems of
ethics were developed. Unfortunately, during “good times,” nobody wants
to hear about it. They want to “enjoy” things, to have pleasure and
pleasant experiences, and so any literature that relates to such times
is lost, forgotten, suppressed, or otherwise ignored. This leads to
further debasing of the intellectual currency and opens the gap for
bad times to come once again.

If a collection were to be made of all the books that describe the horrors
of wars, the cruelties of revolutions, and the bloody deeds of political
leaders and systems, most people would avoid such a library. In such
a library, ancient works would be found alongside books by contemporary
historians and reporters. The documentary evidence on German extermination
and concentration camps, complete with dry statistical data, describing
the well-organized “labor” of the destruction of human life, would be
seen to use a properly calm language, and would provide the basis for
acknowledging the nature of Evil.

The autobiography of Rudolf Hess, the commander of camps in Osweicim
(Auschwitz) and Brzezinka, (Birkenau) is a classic example of how an
intelligent psychopath thinks and feels.

Our library of death would include works on philosophy discussing the
social and moral aspects of the genesis of Evil, while using history
to partially justify the blood-drenched “solutions”.

The library would show to the alert reader a sort of evolution from
primitive attitudes, that it is alright to enslave and murder vanquished
peoples, to the present day moralizing which declares that such behavior
is barbaric and worthy of condemnation.

However, such a library would be missing one crucial tome: there would
not be a single work offering a sufficient explanation of the causes
and processes whereby such historical dramas originate, of how and why
human beings periodically degenerate into bloodthirsty madness.

The old questions would remain unanswered: what made this happen? Does
everyone carry the seeds of crime within, or only some of us? No matter
how faithful to the events, nor how psychologically accurate the books
that are available may be, they cannot answer those questions nor can
they fully explain the origin of Evil.

Thus, humanity is at a great disadvantage because without a fully scientific
explanation of the origins of Evil, there is no possibility of the development
of sufficiently effective principles for counteracting Evil.

The best literary description of a disease cannot produce an understanding
of its essential etiology, and can thus furnish no principles for treatment.
In the same way, descriptions of historical tragedies are incapable
of elaborating effective measures for counteracting the genesis, existence,
or spread of Evil.

In using natural language to discuss psychological, social and moral
concepts, we find that we can only produce an approximation, which leads
to a nagging suspicion of helplessness.

Our ordinary system of concepts are not invested with the necessary
factual content - scientific observations about Evil - which would permit
comprehension of the quality of the many factors (particularly the psychological
ones) which are active before and during the birth of inhumanly cruel
times.

Nevertheless, the authors of some of the books that we would find in
our Library of Evil took great care to infuse their words with the proper
precision as though they were hoping that someone, at some time, would
use their records to explain what they, themselves, could not explain
even in the best literary language.

Most human beings are horrified by such literature. Hedonistic societies
have the strong tendency to encourage escape into ignorance or naive
doctrines. Some people even feel contempt for the suffering of others.

It is true that, in tracking the behavioral mechanisms of the genesis
of Evil, one must keep both abhorrence and fear under control, submit
to a passion for science, and develop the calm outlook needed in natural
history.

This book aims to take the reader by the hand into a world beyond the
concepts and imaginings he has trusted and used since childhood. This
is necessary due to the problems our world presently faces, things we
can no longer ignore, or ignore only at the peril of all humanity. We
must realize that we cannot possibly distinguish the path to nuclear
catastrophe from the path to creative dedication unless we step beyond
the subjective world of well-known concepts, and we must also realize
that this subjective world was chosen for us by powerful forces against
which our nostalgia for homey, human ideas about warmth and safety is
no match.

Moral evil and psychobiological evil are interlinked via so many causal
relationships and mutual influences that they can only be separated
by means of abstraction. However, the ability to distinguish them qualitatively
protects us from moralizing interpretations that so easily can poison
the human mind in an insidious way.

Macro-social phenomena of Evil, which constitute the most important
object of this book, appear to be subjected to the same laws of nature
operating within human beings on individual or small-group levels. The
role of persons with various psychological defects and anomalies of
a clinically low level appear to be a perennial characteristic of such
phenomena.

In the macro-social phenomenon where Evil runs rampant, “Pathocracy,”
a certain hereditary anomaly isolated as “essential psychopathy” is
catalytically and causatively essential for the genesis and survival
of such a State.[…]

This
last remark is the key to “grand conspiracies” that many are convinced
cannot exist. Dr. Lobaczewski discusses the kinds of individuals that
form a “Pathocracy,” or “psychopathic government,” and further, he elaborates
details about psychopaths based on his studies and the studies of those
with whom he was associated, that have never been openly discussed as
far as I can tell after reading many thousands of pages of material
on the subject generated in the West. Dr. Lobaczewski, on the other
hand, undertook his studies “in the belly of the beast,” so to say,
with live “specimens”. The value of such a study cannot be overstated.

Lobaczewski: Pathological processes have historically had a profound
influence upon human society at large due to the fact that many individuals
with deformed characters have played outstanding roles in the formation
of social constructs. It is helpful to have some background on this.
Dr. Lobaczewski writes:

Brain tissue is very limited in its regenerative ability. If it is damaged
and the change subsequently heals, a process of rehabilitation takes
place thanks to which the neighboring healthy tissue takes over the
function of the damaged portion. This substitution is never quite perfect
thus some deficits as regards skill and proper psychological processes
can be detected, even in cases of very small damage, by using the appropriate
tests. […]

As regards pathological factors of ponerogenic processes, perinatal
or early-infant damages have more active results than damages which
occur later.

In societies with highly developed medical care, we find among the lower
grades of elementary schools that 5 to 7 percent of the children have
suffered brain tissue lesions which cause certain academic or behavioral
difficulties.[…]15

This is actually a frightening figure. If we realize that an even higher
percentage of the previous generations have suffered brain tissue lesions
during a time when there was no highly developed perinatal and neonatal
medical care, not to mention the damage that may be suffered among those
populations today where such care is still primitive, we can understand
that much of our own culture has been shaped by people with brain damage
and we are faced with dealing with a world in which brain damaged individuals
have an important influence on the social constructs! Keep in mind that
if your grandfather suffered perinatal or neonatal brain damage, it
affected how he raised one of your parents, which affects how that parent
raised you!

Epilepsy constitutes the oldest known results of such lesions; it is
observed in relatively small numbers of persons suffering such damage.
Researchers in these matters are more or less unanimous in believing
that Julius Caesar and then later Napoleon Bonaparte had epileptic seizures.
The extent to which these ailments had a negative effect upon their
characters and historical decision making, or played a ponerogenic role,
can be the subject of a separate study. In most cases, however, epilepsy
is an evident ailment, which limits its role as a ponerogenic factor.16

In a much larger part of the bearers of brain tissue damage, the negative
deformation of their characters grows in the course of time. It takes
on various mental pictures depending on the properties and localizations
of the damage, their time of origin, and also the life conditions of
the individual after their occurrence. We will call character disorders
resulting from such pathology “Characteropathies.”

Some characteropathies play an outstanding role as pathological agents
in the processes of the genesis of evil on a large social scale. […]

A relatively well-documented example of such an influence of a characteropathic
personality on a macro-social scale is the last German emperor, Wilhelm
II. He was subjected to brain trauma at birth. During and after his
entire reign, his physical and psychological handicap was hidden from
public knowledge. The motor abilities of the upper left portion of his
body were handicapped. As a boy, he had difficulty learning grammar,
geometry, and drawing, which constitutes the typical triad of academic
difficulties caused by minor brain lesions. He developed a personality
with infantilistic features and insufficient control over his emotions,
and also a somewhat paranoid way of thinking which easily sidestepped
the heart of some important issues in the process of dodging problems.

Militaristic poses and a general’s uniform overcompensated for his feelings
of inferiority and effectively cloaked his shortcomings. Politically,
his insufficient control of emotions and factors of personal rancor
came into view. The old Iron Chancellor had to go, that cunning and
ruthless politician who had been loyal to the monarchy and built up
Prussian power. After all, he was too knowledgeable about the prince’s
defects and had worked against his coronation. A similar fate met other
overly critical people, who were replaced by persons with lesser brains,
more subservience, and sometimes, discreet psychological deviations.
Negative selection took place.

Notice this last term: “negative selection took place.” That is to say,
a defective head of state selected his staff, his government, based
on his own pathologically damaged worldview. I’m sure the reader can
perceive how dangerous such a situation can be to the people governed
by such a “negatively selected” cabal. The important thing to consider
here is what effect this had on the social constructs under the rule
of such individuals.

Lobaczewski
explains: The experience of people with such anomalies grows out of
the normal human world to which they belong by nature. Thus, their different
way of thinking, their emotional violence, and their egotism find relatively
easy entry into other people’s minds and are perceived within the categories
of the natural world-view. Such behavior on the part of persons with
such character disorders traumatizes the minds and feelings of normal
people, gradually diminishing their ability to use their common sense.
In spite of their resistance, people become used to the rigid habits
of pathological thinking and experiencing. In young people, as a result,
the personality suffers abnormal development leading to its malformation.
They thus represent pathological ponerogenic factors which, by their
covert activity, easily engenders new phases in the eternal genesis
of evil, opening the door to a later activation of other factors which
thereupon take over the main role. […]

[In the case of the effect of Wilhelm II], many Germans were progressively
deprived of their ability to use their common sense because of the impingement
of psychological material of the characteropathic type, as the common
people are prone to identify with the emperor…

A new generation grew up with deformities as regards feeling and understanding
moral, psychological, social and political realities. It is extremely
typical that in many German families containing a member who was psychologically
not quite normal, it became a matter of honor (even excusing nefarious
conduct) to hide this fact from public opinion - and even the awareness
of close friends and relatives. Large portions of society ingested psychopathological
material, together with that unrealistic way of thinking wherein slogans
take on the power of arguments and real data are subjected to subconscious
selection.

This occurred during a time when a wave of hysteria was growing throughout
Europe, including a tendency for emotions to dominate and for human
behavior to contain an element of histrionics. […] This progressively
took over three empires and other countries on the mainland.

To what extent did Wilhelm II contribute to this, along with two other
emperors whose minds also did not take in the actual facts of history
and government? To what extent were they themselves influenced by an
intensification of hysteria during their reigns? That would make an
interesting topic of discussion among historians and ponerologists.

International tensions increased; Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated
in Sarajevo. However, neither the Kaiser nor any other governmental
authority in his country possessed reason. (Due to the aforementioned
negative selection process.) What came into play was Wilhelm’s emotional
attitude and the stereotypes of thought and action inherited from the
past. War broke out. General war plans prepared earlier, which had lost
their topicality under the new conditions, unfolded more like military
maneuvers. Even those historians familiar with the genesis and character
of the Prussian state, including its ideological tradition of bloody
expansionism, intuit that these situations contained some activity of
an uncomprehended fatality which eludes an analysis in terms of historical
causality.

Many thoughtful persons keep asking the same anxious question: how could
the German nation have chosen for a Fuehrer a clownish psychopath who
made no bones about his pathological vision of superman rule? Under
his leadership, Germany then unleashed a second war, criminal and politically
absurd. During the second half of this war, highly trained army officers
honorably performed the inhuman orders, senseless from the political
and military point of view, issued by a man whose psychological state
corresponded to the routine criteria for being forcibly committed to
psychiatric hospitalization.

Any attempt to explain the things that occurred during the first half
of our century by means of categories generally accepted in historical
thought leaves behind a nagging feeling of inadequacy. Only a ponerological
approach can compensate for this deficit in our comprehension, as it
does justice to the role of various pathological factors in the genesis
of evil at every social level.

Fed for generations on pathologically altered psychological material,
the German nation fell into a state comparable to what we see in certain
individuals raised by persons who are both characteropathic and hysterical.
Psychologists know from experience how often such people then let themselves
commit acts which seriously hurt others. […]

The Germans inflicted and suffered enormous pain during the first World
War; they thus felt no substantial guilt and even thought they had been
wronged, as they were behaving in accordance with their customary habit
without being aware of its pathological causes. The need for this state
to be clothed in heroic garb after a war in order to avoid bitter disintegration
became all too common. A mysterious craving arose, as if the social
organism had … become addicted to some drug. That was the hunger of
pathologically modified psychological material, a phenomenon known to
psychotherapeutic experience. This hunger could only be satisfied by
another personality and system of government, both similarly pathological.

A characteropathic personality opened the door for leadership by a psychopathic
individual.

What
is interesting at this point in Lobaczewski’s discourse is his indication
that this pattern repeats itself again and again in history: a pathologically
brain-damaged individual creates circumstances that condition the public
in a certain way, and this, then, opens the door for the psychopath
to come to power. As I read this, I thought back to the last 45 or 50
years of history in America and realized that the “cold war,” the nuclear
threat, the assassination of JFK, the antics of Nixon, Johnson, Reagan,
Clinton, the manipulation of Americans via the media, were just such
characteropathic conditionings that opened the door for the Neocons
and their nominal puppet, George W. Bush, who can certainly be described
as “a clownish psychopath who makes no bones about his pathological
vision of super-American rule.” We can even see in the cabal that is
assembled around George W. Bush, the same “negative selection” of advisors
and cabinet officials as Lobaczewski described were assembled around
Kaiser Wilhelm.

So,
we begin to understand just how important this “science of evil adjusted
for political purposes” may be and how much understanding we, as a society,
lack. In order to understand exactly how an entire society, even an
entire nation, can become a Pathocracy, we need to understand a little
bit about the types of individuals that make up the core of such a “conspiracy.”
Lobaczewski discusses the most frequent characteropathies and their
relation to brain lesions giving examples.